Saturday, December 18/2010

Coffee outside the market entrance at Jimmy's Café. A mixture of Cypriot and non-Cypriot customers at the little outdoor tables. Not Cypriot and tourist as many non-Cypriots are not tourists either - a mixture of ex-pats, foreign workers (mostly Asian or East European), students on visas, and others, with English being the most common language after Greek. Today at tables near us two young women chat with a man sitting next to them. Heès bald but has a bushy white beard reaching to mid-chest, a gilt-decorated stole round his shoulders and a large bright turban, which he places on his head as he leaves, nodding to us and striding off with his long hand-carved walking stick, a small red plastic bag of market produce hooked to its end and hanging over his shoulder.

Doesn't feel like a week before Christmas, and it's not just the mild temperatures. There's been a real lack of Christmas films and music, even the corny repeat films with quasi-Christmassy themes. And, as J points out, almost the only carols we have heard have been in the supermarkets. Thus we edge past other shirtsleeved customers by the shelves in an overly warm Smart store hearing a voice singing "oh the weather outside is frightful." Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

That's not the only Christmas contribution the supermarkets have to make. They're pretty good at this time of year at providing fairly generous free samples in the aisles. Thus a quiet trip to Metro this afternoon yields - as well as the staples we camae for - a couple of ounces each of red and then white Cypriot wines (palate cleanser in between cubes of Cypriot cheese), a not-all-that small piece of chocolate honey cake, and (pièce de résistance) a small sample of Bailey's liqueur to be drunk from a tiny dark chocolate cup which is then itself consumed. Does mellow one a little in the face of the Christmas supermarket rush.